ICES CM 2008/ACOM:29
R EPORT OF THE P LANNING G ROUP ON C OMMERCIAL C ATCHES , D ISCARDS AND
B IOLOGICAL S AMPLING (PGCCDBS)
3-7 M ARCH 2008
C YPRUS
H. C. Andersens Boulevard 44–46 DK‐1553 Copenhagen V
Denmark
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Recommended format for purposes of citation:
ICES. 2008. Report of the Planning Group on Commercial Catches, Discards and Biological Sampling (PGCCDBS), 3‐7 March 2008, Cyprus. ICES CM 2008/ACOM:29.
91 pp.
For permission to reproduce material from this publication, please apply to the General Secretary.
The document is a report of an Expert Group under the auspices of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and does not necessarily represent the views of the Council.
© 2008 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea
Contents
Contents ... i
Executive summary ...1
1 Introduction ...3
1.1 Terms of Reference ...3
1.2 Background ...3
1.3 General introductory remarks and work plan...4
1.4 Cooperation with PGMED (The Mediterranean Planning Group)...4
1.5 Workshops...4
1.6 Hake Cooperative Research Report ...5
1.6.1 Recommendations ...6
1.7 Methodological workshops working session ...6
1.7.1 WKACCU working session ...6
1.7.2 WKMOG working session...7
1.8 Organization of the report...8
2 Review and follow up of last year’s recommendations...8
3 Review feedback from ICES Assessment Working Groups and other relevant Expert Groups or Workshops as communicated through the contacts officers; Where appropriate propose actions to be taken within the ICES system. ...11
3.1 Assessment Working Group (AWG) recommendations...11
3.2 AWG feedback process ...13
3.3 Methodological Workshops carried out in 2007...15
3.3.1 [WKISCON] Workshop on Implementation Studies on Concurrent Length Sampling...15
3.3.2 [WKUFS] Workshop on Using Fishermen to Sample Catches ...16
3.4 Maturity Calibration Workshops carried out in 2007...17
3.4.1 [WKMSMAC] Workshop on Sexual Maturity Staging of Mackerel and Horse Mackerel ...17
3.4.2 [WKMSHM] Workshop on Sexual Maturity Staging of Hake and Monk...21
3.4.3 [WKMSCWHS] Workshop on Sexual Maturity Staging of Cod, Whiting, Haddock and Saithe...22
3.4.4 Review of Maturity Staging Workshop Recommendations ...24
3.5 Age Calibration Workshops carried out in 2007 ...27
3.5.1 [WKARFLO] Workshop on Age Reading of Flounder...27
3.5.2 [WKARRG] Workshop on Age Reading of Roundnose Grenadier ...29
3.6 Otolith exchanges carried out in 2007...31
3.6.1 International Cod Otolith Exchange Programmes ...31
3.6.2 Mullus otolith exchanges...32
3.6.3 Saithe otolith exchanges...32
3.6.4 Redfish otolith exchanges ...33
4 Consider a report by the European Commission from the DCR Liaison Meeting and relevant STECF sub‐groups on data collection issues. Where appropriate propose actions to be taken within the ICES system. ...35
4.1 Recommendations from the Liaison Meeting (LM) to PGCCDBS ...35
4.2 Review of the Report of the SGRN‐SGECA meeting 08‐01 (Nantes, February 2008)...39
4.3 Review of the reports of other STECF sub‐groups:...39
5 Review changes in data collection procedures and communicate changes to the assessments groups through the contact officers. The Assessment Groups will consider if these changes present problems for stock assessment data and where appropriate propose procedure changes for rectifying the problems...39
6 Continue developing standards and best practices for sampling commercial fisheries. Review the work plan and actions taken so far for establishing standards and best practices and agree on a work plan for intersessional work. ...40
6.1 Minimum Sampling Protocol for Length Structure of Commercial Landings ...40
6.1.1 Allocation of sampling effort ...40
6.1.2 Practicalities of sampling at each port visit...40
6.1.3 Quality Control of data ...41
6.2 QAF...41
7 Continue the work on developing protocols for age calibration and maturity staging workshops. ...49
7.1 WKAC ...49
7.2 WKMS ...49
7.3 Workshop planning...49
8 Intersessional work 2008/2009 ...50
8.1 Otolith exchanges for 2008/2009 ...50
8.1.1 North Sea Plaice ...50
8.1.2 Mackerel...51
8.1.3 Eel...51
8.1.4 Haddock...52
9 References ...52
Annex 1: List of participants...56
Annex 2: Agenda ...57
Annex 3: PGCCDBS terms of reference for the next meeting ...58
Annex 4: Workshop proposals ...60
Annex 5: PGCCDBS Guidelines for Otolith Exchanges...70
Annex 6: PGCCDBS Guidelines for Workshops on Age Calibration ...76
Annex 7: PGCCDBS Guidelines for Workshops on Maturity Staging ...83
Annex 8: Recommendations ...84
Executive summary
The Planning Group on Commercial Catches, Discards and Biological Sampling [PGCCDBS] (Chair: Ernesto Jardim, Portugal) met 3–7 March, 2008 in Cyprus. The Planning Group and workshops are proposed in response to the EC‐ICES MoU that requests ICES to provide support for the Data Collection Regulation (EC/Reg.
1543/2000 and 199/2008; 1639/2001 and 1581/2004). PGCCDBS is the ICES forum for planning and co‐ordination of collection of data for stock assessment purposes; it coordinates and initiates the development of methods and adopts sampling standards and guidelines. Many activities in this group are closely linked to the activities of the EU Data Collection Regulation (DCR) and DG Fish is a member of PGCCDBS to ensure proper coordination with the DCR activities. Stock assessment requires data covering the total removal from the fish stocks and the PG serves as a forum for coordination with non‐EU member countries where appropriate.
Since 2007 Mediterranean Scientists organize a Planning Group (PGMED) to deal with specific sampling issues of this area. Although organized in an autonomous group it was agreed among all scientists that the contact and cooperation between the Mediterranean area the ICES area should be promoted and maintained. The link between the two planning groups will be maintained through: (i) the inclusion of each groupʹs report as an annex of the other; (ii) the organization of parallel meetings;
(iii) the organization of joint plenary for generic issues, and (iv) the organization of joint workshops.
As mentioned last year (ICES, 2007d), it is the concern of this group that the work done in workshops should be promoted by publishing calibration WK results under the ICES Cooperative Research Report series (CRR). A CRR on European hake age readings will be presented this year to the Council.
Considering the importance of methodological workshops and the forthcoming Workshop on methods to evaluate and estimate the accuracy of fisheries data used for assessment [WKACCU] and Workshop on Maturity Ogive Estimation for Stock Assessment [WKMOG], two working sessions were promoted so that the chairmen could discuss objectives and methods. It is our view that these working sessions contributed to increase the workshopsʹ success.
Last year’s recommendations were reviewed. Most of them were concluded with success and those not concluded gave raise to developments carried out during this year.
The Group reviewed AWG reports with respect to recommendations addressed to PGCCDBS (Table 3.1). Considering the urgent need to improve communication between AWGs and the member states providing data for assessment a discussion about the development of a data catalogue to manage sampling meta information was carried out. Such catalogue is being developed under the remits of STECF‐SGRN to evaluate the compliance of Member States with the DCR and their National Programmes. The implementation of such a catalogue will be tested by introducing table templates (see Tables 3.2 and 3.3) to be filled in by a set of stock co‐ordinators.
The results of [WKISCON] Workshop on Implementation Studies on Concurrent Length Sampling and [WKUFS] Workshop on Using Fishermen to Sample Catches were presented and discussed (Section 3.3).
The results of the several workshops on maturity staging (Section 3.4) and age calibration (Section 3.5) were presented and discussed. In general there was a good
acceptance of the work done so far although several issues were identified that require improvements. Guidelines for organizing otolith exchanges (Annex 5), workshops on age calibration (Annex 6) and workshops on maturity staging (Annex 7) were developed and should contribute to improve the results obtained.
Recommendations from the European Commission expert groups related with the DCR were considered and where appropriate actions to be taken within the ICES system were proposed. Most gave raise to workshops proposals or intersessional work.
A considerable shift on data collection is expected due to the recent revision of Council Reg. 1543/2000 by Council Reg. 199/2008, and the forthcoming revision of EC Reg. 1639/2001 and EC Reg. 1581/2004. The group considered there will be a consultation process with ICES. However, some subjects were already identified as being potentially of high impact and listed in Section 4.
Regarding the standards for best practices collecting commercial data the group continued the developments from last year and designed a quality assurance framework (Section 6.2) which is supported on a set of quality indicators for each input parameter for assessment. The implementation of such framework relies on 2 workshops (WKACCU and WKPRECISE) scheduled for 2008 and 2009 and the development of minimum sampling protocols (Section 6.1). A suggestion of quality indicators is presented in Table 6.1 for the consideration of WKACCU and WKPRECISE. A minimum sampling protocol for length sampling on the market was developed and will be tested intersessionally. The results of such exercise shall be presented to WKACCU.
During the meeting a set of tasks were identified to be carried out until the 2009 PGCCDBS meeting. Such tasks are of extreme importance once that they allow to take over situations requiring a longer period to be dealt with than the duration of the meeting (Table 8.1). A set of otolith exchanges were proposed for North Sea Place, Mackerel, Eel and Haddock.
A set of workshops were proposed to respond to requests from other expert groups or considering the perception of the group regarding work to be carried out.
[WKPRECISE] Workshop on methods to evaluate and estimate the precision of fisheries data used for assessment; [WKSMRF] Workshop on Sampling Methods for Recreational Fisheries; [WKAEH] Workshop on Age Estimation of European hake;
[WKARA] Workshop on Age Reading of European Anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus);
[WKACM] Workshop on Age Calibration of Red mullet Mullus barbatus and Striped mullet Mullus urmuletus; [WKMSSPDF] Workshop on Sexual Maturity Staging of sole, plaie, dab and flounder; [WKMSC] Workshop on Maturity Staging of Crustaceans (Aristeus antennatus, Aristaeomorpha foliacea, Parapenaeus longirostris, Nephrops norvegicus).
1 Introduction
1.1 Terms of Reference
The Planning Group on Commercial Catches, Discards and Biological Sampling [PGCCDBS] (Chair: Ernesto Jardim, Portugal) met 3–7 March, 2008 in Cyprus to:
a ) Review and follow up of last year’s recommendations;
b ) Review feed‐back from ICES Assessment Working Groups and other relevant Expert Groups or Workshops as communicated through the contacts officers; Where appropriate propose actions to be taken within the ICES system;
c ) Consider a report by the European Commission from the DCR Liaison Meeting and relevant STECF sub‐groups on data collection issues. Where appropriate propose actions to be taken within the ICES system;
d ) Review changes in data collection procedures and communicate changes to the assessments groups through the contact officers. The Assessment Groups will consider if these changes present problems for stock assessment data and where appropriate propose procedure changes for rectifying the problems.
e ) Continue developing standards and best practices for sampling commercial fisheries. Review the work plan and actions taken so far for establishing standards and best practices and agree on a work plan for intersessional work.
f ) Continue the work on developing protocols for age calibration and maturity staging workshops;
1.2 Background
The Planning Group and workshops are proposed in response to the EC‐ICES MoU that requests ICES to provide support for the Data Collection Regulation (EC/Reg.
1543/2000 and 199/2008; 1639/2001 and 1581/2004).
PGCCDBS is the ICES forum for planning and co‐ordination of collection of data for stock assessment purposes; it coordinates and initiates the development of methods and adopts sampling standards and guidelines. Many activities in this group are closely linked to the activities of the EU Data Collection Regulation (DCR) and DG Fish is a member of PGCCDBS to ensure proper coordination with the DCR activities.
Stock assessment requires data covering the total removal from the fish stocks and the PG serves as a forum for coordination with non‐EU member countries where appropriate.
The PG shall develop and approve standards for best sampling practices within its remits and for fisheries in the ICES area. The implementation of these practices is discussed regionally and implemented nationally.
The PG coordinates initiatives for workshops and other activities to address specific problems. The success of the workshops requires a substantial amount of preparatory work in the laboratories. This preparatory work is the responsibility of the national laboratories. ICES have been informed that this work is included in the national annual DCR work plans.
There are five EU Regional Co‐ordination Meetings (RCMs): 1) Northwest Atlantic (NAFO), 2) Mediterranean, 3) Baltic Sea, 4) North Sea and 5) Northeast Atlantic.
These RCMs are forums where EU member countries discuss how best to implement their national programmes.
1.3 General introductory remarks and work plan
There was a clear intention of shifting PGCCDBS into a more action group that could plan and execute tasks. With this is mind the experts attending the group accepted, as last year, to always go beyond recommending, by providing actions, identifying responsibilities and define schedules to fulfil the tasks proposed.
PGCCDBS took in its hands some tasks and defined intersessional work to be carried out during 2008. The tasks, task coordinators and deadlines were agreed during the meeting and are included in a specific section about intersessional work (Section 8).
Once more the stabilization of the ToRs contributed to clarify the role of the PG on the advisory system and largely contributed to an efficient meeting. The work of an expert group like PGCCDBS, with approximated 35 participants from all European countries, must be built along the years, finding its role within ICES and having consistent ToRs is of extreme importance.
To avoid large subgroups that partially impaired the productivity in 2006, the meeting was organized in small subgroups with 4 to 6 scientists dealing with specific tasks. This allowed the group to be more efficient and promoted a wider contribution to our final results.
The use of online tools to deal with our tasks and support the meeting organization was extended. This year the Sharepoint site was used to manage documentation during the meeting. These tools supported the development of our work and created conditions to continue our tasks intersessionally.
1.4 Cooperation with PGMED (The Mediterranean Planning Group)
Since 2007 Mediterranean Scientists organize a Planning Group (PGMED) to deal with specific sampling issues of this area. Although organized in an autonomous group it was agreed among all scientists that the contact and cooperation between the Mediterranean area the ICES area should be promoted and maintained.
The link between the two planning groups will be maintained through: (i) the inclusion of each groupʹs report as an annex of the other; (ii) the organization of parallel meetings; (iii) the organization of joint plenary for generic issues, and (iv) the organization of joint workshops.
1.5 Workshops
Workshops have become an important tool to deal with tasks required by the PG. At the moment there are two types of workshops:
• methodological workshops that deal with general methods of applications to all areas/species/fisheries;
• calibration workshops that include age reading and maturity staging (WKAC&MS) and deal with promoting agreement among scientists classifying otoliths and gonads of specific species or groups of species.
All workshops are now carried out as official ICES workshops and the reports stored on the PGCCDBS documents repository, in pdf‐format and available to the public,
(http://www.ices.dk/reports/acfm/pgccdbs/PGCCDBSdocrepository.asp), maintained by the ICES Secretariat.
As mentioned last year (ICES, 2007d), it is the concern of this group that the work done in workshops should be promoted by publishing calibration WK results under the ICES Cooperative Research Report series (CRR). Such publication should constitute a major contribution to the literature by reporting the state of the art of scientific knowledge regarding a species or a group of species. Itʹs our view that this process will promote quality of this work and will constitute an important recognition of the scientists involved. During 2008 a CRR about hake age calibration will be submitted based on a 2007 resolution (Section 1.6) and other examples will be promoted (redfish, cod).
1.6 Hake Cooperative Research Report
Since 1992, otolith analyses have been employed routinely to build annual age‐length keys for hake stock assessment (ICES WGSSDS), but in recent years assessments have raised concerns about the state of the hake stocks. Age data is provided by different countries and there is a need to assess the reliability of the age readings. Hake otoliths are difficult to interpret due to numerous checks and complex otolith growth patterns. The complex otolith macrostructure and growth variability are related to the long spawning season. The debate about whether hake is a fast or a slow growing species has been going on since the 1930s (Hickling 1933; Belloc, 1935) and extensive literature on growth studies from different areas have reported very different growth estimates for hake on both NE Atlantic (see for revision, Piñeiro and Sainza 2003) and Mediterranean Sea (Morales‐Nin et al., 1998; Garcia Rodriguez and Esteban, 2002).
Hake age estimation method has yet not been validated, although there has been progress on improving the precision of age data within international reading otolith exchanges and workshops during the last decade: (1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2004):
The biology of hake is insufficiently known to make accurate predictions, particularly growth knowledge, which is essential in order to accurately assess the two Atlantic stocks (Northern and Southern). Results based on a blind interpretation of marked otoliths by two experts involved in the routine age estimation of hake, showed that the age estimates were neither accurate nor precise and invalidate the internationally agreed age estimation method (De Pontual et. al, 2006). The Hake age‐reading WK in 2004 recommended to interrupt ALK for the WGHMM until validated/accurate criteria are available (WGHMM Report, 2004, ICES CM 2005/ACFM: 02).
Validation studies based on tagging method have only been recently accomplished due to fragility of the sp. (Lucio et al., 2000; De Pontual et al., 2003, Piñeiro et al., 2007) and results from tagging‐recapture experiments have concluded that hake grows two‐fold faster than considered previously with a mean growth rate of 0.052 cm/day (De Pontual et al., 2006; Piñeiro et al., 2007). Daily growth studies corroborate the fast growth hypothesis of this species with growth rates between 0.62 to 0.74 mm/day during the first year of life (Piñeiro et al., 2004; Kacher and Amara, 2005; Piñeiro et al., submitted). It is essential the study of factors such as hatch date season, the typology of otolith macrostructure and its biological meaning, as well as understanding the mechanisms (environmental and endogenous) (Courbin et al., 2007) that control the deposition of otolith growth rings. Daily growth studies are necessary to locate the position of the first annual ring by area and stock. Experiments in controlled environment to understand optical signal of the otolith structure and other issues are required.
1.6.1 Recommendations
• A large‐scale tagging programme covering both stocks.
• Compile present known age material that can be used for age validation.
• To weigh aged otoliths in order perform statistical approaches to estimating age distributions from these data.
• To carry out an exchange programme with a set of exchange images (including otoliths from tagged fish).
• To agree a WK with age readers and stock assessors to progress a solution.
1.7 Methodological workshops working session
Considering the importance of methodological workshops and the forthcoming Workshop on methods to evaluate and estimate the accuracy of fisheries data used for assessment [WKACCU] and Workshop on Maturity Ogive Estimation for Stock Assessment [WKMOG], two working sessions were promoted so that the chairmen could discuss objectives and methods. It is our view that these working sessions contributed to increase the workshopsʹ success.
1.7.1 WKACCU working session
During the Planning Group meeting the chairman called for a sub‐group to plan and discuss the content of the WKACCU in October 2008.
The first ToR aims at black landings, discards and fishing effort. Possible sources of bias should be reviewed and (preferably) rank listed. General parameters (indicators)/procedures to assess and quantify the bias should be identified, if appropriate then combine sources of information. Scientifically justified methods/procedures for bias quantification are needed.
Probability indicators of illegal landings should be proposed, etc having a big/average/small impact on the assessment. Sources of information and their quality should be categorised. Assessment groups have described this extensively. This should be systematised over stock level (if national levels are too politically difficult).
This is often a sensitive issue, but transparency is needed. If there is a high probability of having wrong catch statistics, then it is proposed to show different scenarios and choose the scenario with the best guess on underestimation.
The Group thought it would be useful to invite control and enforcement people.
Thus, it is necessary to get clearance from the ICES General Secretary to invite participants from the control agencies. Inspection databases may be used.
Misreporting indicators are set up by inspectors. This includes number of inspections, rate of errors etc. This is published in public information and hence would be very useful for us. However, we should be aware of the political sensitiveness of their input and status in the meeting. Data collection should not become an inspection instrument. It will be investigated until the WKACCU if and how these databases, on a routine basis, could be sent to and compiled by ICES for assessment purpose.
The process of how the Stock Coordinator decides which catch statistics to take into account should be reviewed. The basis for the WG estimates should be described.
Standard information/systematised per stock assessment can make a standard table, that could also serve to make this transparent to the public. Direction and size of the issue should be included, and if it is considered large enough/quantifiable and taken up in the actual calculations. For example:
CATEGORY 1 CATEGORY 2 CATEGORY 3
LIST OF BIAS ISSUES
Quantified + used in assessment
Not quantified but considered important
Not quantified, probably not important
Discards
Underreporting
Misreporting Can be + or ‐
Etc
Totals XX
Totals are what we use now in calculations, without a) showing exactly where it comes from or b) what other issues need to be dealt with too.
Other issues that should be a concern for the WKACCU:
a ) Logbooks versus sales notes.
b ) Use VMS data too to reach higher precision.
c ) Plot logbook/VMS to assure area coverage.
d ) VMS to scale effort.
e ) Wrong conversion factors being used for converting product weight to live weight may be an important source of bias.
f ) Bias could be caused by the quota system/regulations.
g ) The Study Group of Unaccounted Fishing Mortality reports should be reviewed to see if work presented there could be useful for WKACCU.
Tasks that need to be completed by each participating country prior to the meeting are listed under ToR e).
The Planning Group also refers to the proposed quality assurance plan shown under ToR e), and the requested input from WKACCU in that regard and with regards to the second ToR concerning accuracy related to the biological sampling and sampling coverage (e.g., output from recently developed catch‐at‐age analysing programs such as COST, ECA may be useful).
1.7.2 WKMOG working session
A short working session was held to discuss and prepare for the upcoming Workshop on Maturity Ogive Estimation for Stock Assessment, (WKMOG), 3–6 June 2008. This proved to be useful and was welcomed by the WKMOG chair. The terms of reference were endorsed and the focus of the workshop will be to apply estimation methods to data. Therefore, it is essential that before the workshop participants provide data, method descriptions and code or programs to implement them.
Lisa Readdy ([email protected]) will be the data co‐ordinator for the workshop and workshop participants are requested to send an example of the data they use for maturity estimation to her by 7 May 2008 to allow time for checking. Along with the examples that WKMOG participants will provide, PGCCDBS suggested extracting data from the DATRAS database. Cod and flounder from the Baltic Sea Q1 survey and North Sea gadoid species from the IBTS Q1 survey were identified as suitable examples.
PGCCDBS agreed that the FishFrame 5.0 / COST 1.0 data exchange format (www.fishframe.org) should be used to provide data. Within this format the CS
tables are appropriate for maturity sample information and any associated length sample data.
Two working documents were provided to PGCCDBS describing methods of sexual maturity estimation currently in use; these will be used as examples for other workshop participants to follow. The methods described were regression based on the transformed percentage maturity for Baltic sprat, herring and cod and a GLM/GAM approach adopted by ICES WGHMM to estimate annual maturity ogives for Southern hake. PGCCDBS suggested that the national DCR Technical Reports are reviewed for any information on methods of maturity estimation. The reports on 2005 will be used initially as they are available on the JRC website (http://datacollection.jrc.ec.europa.eu/)
Discussion on methods highlighted that maturity data collection and estimation need to take into account the spatial structure of the population, particularly if spawners and non‐spawners are found in areas where fishing gear has different catchabilities, and WKMOG should consider this.
1.8 Organization of the report
The report is organized by ToR starting with Section 2 for ToR a) through Section 7 for ToR f). A set of annexes was added following the template provided by ICES (list of participants, agenda, ToR for 2008, recommendation table), the WK proposals and the PGMED report.
2 Review and follow up of last year’s recommendations
Table 2.1. Follow up recommendations from last year and update on task status.
RECOMMENDATION ACTION STATUS
1. PGCCDBS will promote the publication of calibration WK reports under the ICES Cooperative Research Report series.
McCurdy and Milner to request and compile WK reports and prepaire submission to CRR.
Hake CRR accepted by Council. Authors progressing. To be submitted on the 4th quarter.
2. The chairs of WKAC&MS for specific stocks will make sure that the relevant WG chair is aware of the results and the report.
Chair to email this decision to 2007 WK chairs. ICES Sec. to include on the information to be sent to future WK chairs.
Done.
3. PGCCDBS decided to have internal correspondents for each AWG that should take over the responsibility of
communicating with AWG chairs.
PGCCDBS chair to collect these names in Table 3.4 before next meeting.
Done.
RECOMMENDATION ACTION STATUS
4. To promote communication with AWG PGCCDBS will propose a template for a data section to be included in AWG reports and discuss it with AWGs chairs.
Stransky and Ringdhal to develop proposal and start discussion with AWGs chairs.
Done. Under development/test during 2008 (section 3.2)
5. The Secretariat will function as distribution point for any recommendation or information from PGCCDBS to stock coordinators.
ICES Sec. to take note.
Done.
6. Recommendations and communications from PGCCDBS and its workshops to other bodies will go via the ICES Secretariat.
ICES Sec. to take note.
Done.
7. Develop a “minimum protocol” for length frequency sampling and compare national protocols with it to identify main deviances.
Bell, Fotland and Berth to develop this taks and present proposal during next 6 month.
Partially done, developments during the meeting (section 6.1).
8. WKAC findings to be forwarded to relevant AWG. ICES Sec. to forward to AWG.
Done.
9. WKMAT report to be distributed. ICES Sec. to forward to EG.
Done.
10. WKDRP report to be distributed. ICES Sec. to forward to EG.
Done.
11. Liaison meeting recommendations to be forwarded. ICES Sec. to forward to LM.
Done.
12. AWG recommendations to be forwarded (Table 3.4) ICES Sec. to forward to AWG.
Done.
13. Update maturity ogives used for a number of stocks should be considered (Table 4.1).
ICES Sec. to forward to AWG.
Done.
14. Take advantage of new technology in fish markest like automatic fish‐grading machines.
ICES Sec. to forward to National Laboratories.
Done.
15. PGCCDBS recommends that the new ICES Quality Manager co‐operates with PGCCDBS to develop online data tables containing basic data collection information, including age calibration and maturity staging information and its use by assessment working groups.
ICES Sec. to give
feedback and start cooperation with PGCCDBS (Hanson, Maxwell and Jardim).
No progress.
Developments during the meeting (section 6.2).
RECOMMENDATION ACTION STATUS
16. Each laboratory to carry out implementation studies in 2007 following the protocol described.
ICES Sec. to forward to National Laboratories.
Done.
17. Proposal for a Workshop (WKISCON, see Annex 5) to dicuss the results of the implementation studies.
ICES Delegates to decide.
Done.
18. During discard sampling collect both the retained and the discarded catch fractions concurrently, i.e. from the same fishing operation.
ICES Sec. to forward to National Laboratories.
Done.
19. The PGCCDBS agreed on the following prioritized workplan:
To develop a “minimum” international protocol to be used as a standard, and which should contain a minimum of procedures that the national protocols need to meet to fulfil the
requirements set. Such requirements are e.g., how the fish is measured – total length, fork length, rounding to nearest cm below etc., stratification system etc. A possible indicator of quality could be the percentage agreement of compliance with the minimum protocol. This analysis should be done prior to WKACCU (see below).
A workshop (WKACCU) with terms of reference to establish standardized/joint methods on how to evaluate and estimate the accuracy of submitted fisheries data should be held in 2008.
This should include analyses of sample coverage and methods to use for estimating/evaluating the quality of total catches, i.e., whether and how discards, misreportings, unreportings, etc. are included.
A workshop (WKPRECISE) with terms of reference to establish standardized/joint methods and indicators for evaluating and estimating the precision of submitted fisheries data should be held. Definitions of standards (i.e., minimum requirements) should then be made. Although some laboratories already have developed suitable tools for such precision estimation, the planned EU COST‐project should preferably be finished (about 2 year) before holding the workshop, as this EU‐project may contribute a lot to this issue.
ICES Sec. to discuss and give feedback and/or propose to ICES Delegates.
Done. Workplan accepted.
20. PGCCDBS considers that cooperation and coordination in fish age determination should be arranged on a permanent and regular basis. Therefore it is recommended to hold regular otolith exchanges and workshops. Exchanges should be carried out at least once every two years and the possibility for a workshop should be offered at least once every four years (Table 6.1).
21. Guidelines for otholits exchanges.
22. Guidelines for workshops on age calibration.
23. Guidelines for follow up actions of workshops on age calibration.
24. Guidelines to report relevant information of workshops on age calibration to AWGs.
ICES Sec. to distribute to National Laboratories, WK chairs and AWGs chairs asking for feedback on the next 3 month. Bolle, McCurdy, Kornilovs, Chonchúir and Milner
Done. No feedback.
Developments during the meeting (section 7.1).
RECOMMENDATION ACTION STATUS
25. Generic ToR of workshops on age calibration. to build on these comments and propose a final version on the next 6 month, which should be approved on the next PGCCDBS meeting.
26. Generic ToR of workshops on maturity staging. ICES Sec. to distribute to National Laboratories, WK chairs and AWGs chairs asking for feedback.
To be finalised on the next PGCCDBS meeting.
Done. No feedback.
Developments during the meeting (section 7.2).
27. Proposal for a WKMOG (Annex 5) ICES
Delegates to decide.
Accepted by Council.
28. Several proposals for WKAC&MS (Annex 5) ICES Delegates to decide.
Partial. Most accepted by Council but some were not able to provide a mature proposal in time.
3 Review feedback from ICES Assessment Working Groups and other relevant Expert Groups or Workshops as communicated through the contacts officers; Where appropriate propose actions to be taken within the ICES system.
3.1 Assessment Working Group (AWG) recommendations
The Group reviewed AWG reports with respect to recommendations addressed to PGCCDBS and only focused on recommendations clearly spelled out.
Table 3.1. Assessment Working Groups recommendations and PGCCDBS comments.
AWG RECOMMENDATION PGCCDBS COMMENTS
AFWG none
HAWG none
NWWG none
WGBAST none
AWG RECOMMENDATION PGCCDBS COMMENTS
WGBFAS A regular quality control of age reading consistency for Baltic herring, sprat, sole, cod and flounder should be organized.
a) regular exchange of an agreed number of otolith samples which are circulated among the national fisheries institutes.
The results are sent to persons who coordinate the sample exchange for the certain species and who conduct the analysis of age determination results and distribute them between the participants;
PGCCDBS
recommendation to arrange small exchanges every second year, see section7.1)
b) organisation of regular Age Reading Workshops on triennial basis. The differences in age determination of sprat and flounder revealed by Age Reading Workshops in 2006 identified the need of further work between national experts that will manifest in exchange of otolith samples starting in spring 2006. It would be essential that the results of these exchanges are discussed in Age Reading
Workshops held in 2007. Besides bilateral or trilateral meetings on regional basis of the Baltic Sea could also be useful and should be supported.
PGCCDBS
recommendation is to consider offering workshops every fourth year, see section 7.1) and PGCCDBS report 2007
c) WGBFAS emphasizes the importance that national institutes pay attention to recommendations of the Age Reading Workshops concerning collection of otolith samples for age reading, necessary age reading technique and the general results of age determination in otolith sample exchanges and at the Workshops.
WGDEEP none
WGEF Given that some of the data collected for skates (Rajidae), and possibly other elasmobranchs, from market sampling and discard surveys is compromised by inaccurate species identification, and that raising procedures and data origins are often not supplied, it is recommended that PGCCDBS provide the necessary supporting information to ensure that data collection (including species identification) and raising procedures (by gear, season, ICES Division and nation) for skate and ray sampling are standardised across laboratories. Such work may be best conducted in the form of a one‐off workshop.
PGCCDBS recommends conduction of
implementation studies on mixed elasmobranch species landings in 2008, see section 4.1)
WGHMM none
WGMHSA none
WGNEW none
WGNPBW none
WGCRAN WGCRAN recommends that catch sampling be undertaken by all nations on Crangon fishing vessels in line with EU data collection regulations. Both by‐catch and Crangon are important. WGCRAN recommend that standardised protocol be used for sampling Crangon vessels. Sampling should be stratified to sub‐sample a representative cross‐
section of fleet, especially seasonal and depth variation.
PGCCDBS notes that the co‐ordination of Crangon sampling will be dealt with in the Regional Co‐ordination Meeting on the North Sea region (RCM NS&EA).
WGNSDS none
AWG RECOMMENDATION PGCCDBS COMMENTS
WGNSSK The 2006 review Group expressed concerns about these noisy patterns from the landings, and the WG has also focused on this issue. The WG collected information from Danish and Swedish otolith readers, which confirmed some uncertainties in age reading for plaice IIIa. This is mainly due to difficulties in interpreting the first ring and the edge, as well as to large variations in growth between males and females in the one hand, and North and South in the other hand. However, it has not been possible to further address this issue in the current assessment neither through data checking nor simulation. This will be a main key issue to be investigated for a forthcoming assessment. The WG recommends that this issue could be referred to PGCCDBS.
PGCCDBS notes that this issue will be taken up bilaterally by Denmark and Sweden.
WGMHSA The Working Group on the Assessment of Mackerel, Horse Mackerel, Sardine, and Anchovy recommends for an age reading workshop on North‐east Atlantic mackerel.
see section 7.1)
WGSSDS none
3.2 AWG feedback process
PGCCDBS considered that the system of contact officers providing a link between ICES stock assessment Working Groups and PGCCDBS was insufficiently developed in 2007 to evaluate the success of this initiative. Furthermore, there did not appear to be a well‐defined protocol for contacts officers to provide feedback from AWGs.
Hence PGCCDBS was not in a position to provide adequate review of feedback from contact officers.
The development of a Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) and associated data catalogue (Anon. 2008a) may prove a more appropriate link between AWGs and PGCCDBS by automating the reporting of data usage by the AWGs, reducing demands on already reduced WG time. The AWGs would still need to explain why certain data were not incorporated in assessments and this is likely to lead to more constructive scientific debate on data needs.
The ICES AMAWGC (ICES 2008) supported the development of a data catalogue to manage sampling meta information so that the sampling summaries can be generated automatically. This should at the same time also suit the needs of STECF‐SGRN when evaluating the compliance of Member States with the DCR and their National Programmes. The implementation of such a catalogue will be tested by introducing table templates (see Tables 3.2 and 3.3) to the AWGs in 2008 to be filled in by the stock co‐ordinators of the following stocks (expanded from the list AMAWGC proposed):
a ) WGWIDE: NEA mackerel, NSS herring b ) WGSSDS: Haddock VIIb‐k, Plaice VIIe c ) WGHMM: Iberian hake, Bay of Biscay sole d ) HAWG: North Sea herring
e ) WGBFAS: eastern Baltic cod, Baltic sprat f ) WGNSSK: North Sea plaice
The proposed tables will be reviewed intersessionally (until end of March 2008) by Jørgen Dalskov, Ernesto Jardim, Christoph Stransky and Joёl Vigneau, sent to the stock co‐ordinators by early April 2008. These persons will also co‐ordinate the
collation of responses from the stock co‐ordinators for consideration at the next PGCCDBS.
Table 3.2. Example for data table per country.
PARAMETER:LENGTH DISTRIBUTION OF LANDINGS/RETAINED PART COUNTRY 1 COUNTRY 2 … RESPONSIBILITY
Conformity with protocol
Coverage Time (Q) 1
2
3
4
Space (ICES Div.) VIa
VIb
VIIa
VIIb
VIIc
Tech/metier Trawl 50mm
Trawl 90mm
Nets 120mm
Pots
Sampling effort No. of sampled trips
No. fish measured
No. different vessels
Methods Sampling strategy Automatic from catalog
Data Available
Processed
Used Stock coord.
Table 3.3. Example for data table per stock.
PARAMETER:LENGTH DISTRIBUTION OF LANDINGS/RETAINED PART STOCK 1 STOCK 2 ... RESPONSIBILITY
Conformity with protocol
Coverage Time (Q) 1
2
3
4
Space (ICES Div.) VIa
VIb
VIIa
VIIb
VIIc
Tech/metier Trawl 50mm
Trawl 90mm
Nets 120mm
Pots
Sampling effort No. of sampled trips
No. fish measured
No. different vessels Automatic from catalog
PARAMETER:LENGTH DISTRIBUTION OF LANDINGS/RETAINED PART STOCK 1 STOCK 2 ... RESPONSIBILITY
Methods Sampling strategy
Inference Methods
Bias quality indicator (WKACCU)
Precision quality indicator (WKPRECISE)
Stock coord.
3.3 Methodological Workshops carried out in 2007
3.3.1 [WKISCON] Workshop on Implementation Studies on Concurrent Length Sampling
One of the major changes in the new DCR is a shift towards concurrent length‐
sampling of fishing activities; a sampling strategy covering the sampling of all species during a sampling operation. This strategy facilitates the data demands of the existing stock‐based assessments as well as serving the needs for future fishery based management and ecosystem approach. PGCCDBS (2007) stated that the requirements on concurrent length‐sampling are likely to cause significant problems for the involved institutes. To ease the shift towards concurrent length sampling, member states that foresaw practical problems, carried out implementation studies on concurrent sampling testing the feasibility of and the possibilities for concurrent sampling.
16 member states presented the results of their implementation study during WKISCON in Copenhagen. The following common problems were identified:
1 ) Restricted access: Several issues concerning access to the fish in auction were raised, including; limited access to storage, access to “fragile” species or species specially packed for sales and the fear that data could be used for control purposes.
2 ) Time restrictions: In nearly all cases the time window available to sample the fish was often too low.
3 ) Commercial grades: Some species are sorted into 7 categories, resulting in a time consuming sampling operation to cover all categories.
4 ) Higher costs: All countries participating in the implementation studies identified the possible increase in costs as a result of increased sampling effort. This increase is a result of the extra samples that have to be taken;
the risk of repeated sampling operations in case of incomplete samples;
cost to gain access to the fish (buying of samples) and the possible increase in on‐board sampling
5 ) Data issues: Concerns were expressed on the representativeness of the samples, in particular relating to random vessel selection and the complexity of sampling polyvalent vessels fishing in multiple areas.
Sampling at sea is the preferred way of concurrent sampling and length sampling of landings on shore can be considered as a supplement to at sea sampling. On shore sampling can be combined with at sea sampling where appropriate. WKISCON redesigned the sampling scheme proposed by PGCCDBS in 2007. The new scheme (Table 3.4) takes the results of the implementation studies into account and foresees in full concurrent sampling even when this is done on a sufficient number of intermittent trips where extra resources can be made available.
Table 3.4. Proposed sampling scheme.
1 2 3 . n 1 2 3 . n 1 2 3 . n
Scheme 1 Every sampling event x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
x% of sampling events x x x x x
(100‐x)% of sampling events x x x x x
x% of sampling operations x x x x x
(100‐x)% of sampling events x x x x x
x x x
Scheme 3 x x x x x Sampling at sea
x x x x
Scheme 2 x x x
Gro up 2 Other TAC regulated and major by-
catch species
Gro up 3 Other by-catch species Sampling
s c he me Fre que nc y
Gro up 1 Target and recovery species
Three groups of species are proposed to allocate species to, covering the range from species that drive the management process to by‐catch species. Regional coordination is needed to allocate a certain species to a group, thus ensuring all countries in a region use the same allocation. As for the allocation of species, the allocation of samples to a métier needs to be coordinated by region, preferably by the Regional Coordination Meetings (RCM) of that specific region.
Based on the ideas as suggested by SGRN 06‐03, WKISCON suggests that the selection of the métiers to be sampled is done by ranging the métiers by effort and to include all métiers in the sampling program that cover the top 95% of the effort. It is suggested that some métiers can be merged for practical reasons, but this merging has to be done on such basis that the sampling coverage of the major métiers is ensured.
One of the major concerns is the difficulty to perform random sampling as concurrent sampling has to be implemented next to other sampling operations, e.g. sampling for ages. In general, concurrent sampling depends on the willingness of the fisherman to cooperate. Another concern is that the effort put into sampling is redirected towards by‐catch species, resulting in a relative under‐sampling of species that actually drive the fisheries management. To counteract this, additional sampling of the most important species might be appropriate.
The number of trips that have to be sampled should be defined by precision objectives. As each métier catches several species, it is undesirable to find a compromise between the objectives of precision for each species. Therefore, WKISCON suggests that the objective of precision should be defined at a regional level on the assemblage of target species.
3.3.2 [WKUFS] Workshop on Using Fishermen to Sample Catches
To assess a fishery it is necessary to determine the biological characteristics, such as age and length distributions, of the commercial catch. In addition, estimates of the amount of discards will lead to more accurate assessments, as will information about effort, fishing efficiency and fleet behaviour. Using scientists to collect information on commercial catches is usually not cost effective. Currently there is ongoing effort worldwide to develop programs to use fishers to self‐sample their catches. Because of the possibility that using fishers would be an efficient and cost effective means to collect fishery data, the workshop attracted many scientist and industry representatives from throughout Europe and Canada. Two broad objectives for such self‐sampling programs were identified at the workshop. One is that it would be a way to efficiently collect commercial fishery data. The other goal of such programmes would be to involve fishing industry in the assessment process by having them work closely with the scientists. Therefore it is clear that the purpose of the programs is to improve stock assessments. Here, the improvement is less a question of precision
